The Atlantic Monthly, page 159 by Various Authors
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ashion, have been the agent of that change.
For the rest, though the alleged analogy between the properties of gum-elastic and those which, in this abnormal state, the human body seems to acquire, is, to a certain extent, sustained by many of the observations above recorded,--for example, when a sharp-pointed rapier, violently pushed against Gabrielle Moler's throat, sank to the depth of four finger-breadths, and, when drawn back, seeming to attach itself to the skin, drew it back also, causing a trifling injury,--yet others seem to prove that there is little strictness in that analogy. The King's Chaplain and the Advocate of Parliament, whose testimony I have cited, both certify that the flesh occasionally reacted under the sword, swelling up, so as to thrust back the weapons, and even push back the assistants. There is no corresponding property in gum-elastic. And Montgéron expressly tells us, that, at the close of a terrible succor called for by Gabrielle Moler, when she caused four sharpened shovels, placed, one above, one below, and one on each side, of one of her breasts, to be pushed by the main force of four assistants, a committee of ladies present "had the curiosity to examine her breast immediately after this operation, and unanimously certified that they found it as hard as a stone."[58] If this observation can be depended on, the gum-elastic theory, even as an analogically approximating explanation of this entire class of phenomena, is untenable.
It is further to be remarked, that one of the positions assumed by M. de Gasparin, as the basis of his hypothesis, does not tally with some of the facts detailed by Montgéron. It was pushes with swords, the former alleges, never thrusts, to which the convulsionists were exposed. I have already stated that this was usually the fact; but there seem to have been striking exceptions. On the authority of a priest and of an officer of the royal household, Montgéron gives us the details of a symbolic